Various types of entities, such as businesses or other organizations collectively referred to here as enterprises, are typically created, organized and operated in order to achieve specific goals, e.g., provide goods and/or services to relevant consumers. In order to achieve these goals, many enterprises of varying sizes share the characteristics of engaging in myriad processes and, when executing such processes, acquiring substantial quantities of data related thereto. As enterprises become increasingly large and/or seek to achieve ever more difficult and complex goals, the ability to attain true understanding of the processes involved in order to properly manage such processes, as well as the resources required to implement them, often becomes an intractable problem. While substantial quantities of data may exist that could be used to develop such insight, the sheer quantity, complexity and variability of such data makes it difficult to exploit this potential resource.
Various technologies currently exist to address portions of this problem. For example, in order to efficiently store and provide access to data, numerous database technologies have been developed over the last forty years, each of which may have particular advantages and disadvantages. Additionally, even with such technologies, providing decision makers access to this data requires the support of specifically trained technologists, such as software development and/or database management experts. This results in substantial expense and the very real possibility that needs of the data consumers are not being met. Further still, even though techniques are known for deliver reports from such stored data, the ability to develop insights and understanding about the processes such data represents remains a difficult task.
Thus, it would be advantageous to provide a system that permits enterprises data to be captured and thereafter made available in a way that facilitates access thereto such that even those having little or no experience in enterprise data management may be able to develop insights that were previously prohibitively expense, if not impossible, to achieve.